


Russian Winter Never Ends

by AgataVarano



Series: Scar [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A new baby joins the gang, Attempted Murder, Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Gen, Guns, Help, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26174476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgataVarano/pseuds/AgataVarano
Summary: Someone has still a few debts to pay and someone has still a few nightmares to deal with.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Female Character, Original Female Character & Original Male Character, Stephen Strange & Original Female Character(s)
Series: Scar [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826437
Kudos: 1





	Russian Winter Never Ends

**Author's Note:**

> • English is not my first language, so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes.  
> • You can find this and more fics on my Tumblr @/let-me-write-my-life and my Instagram @/agata_varano.

_ For warmth, you'll be longing, nightingale. - Within Temptation (Ice Queen) _

Sandra rushes down the hallway, heading to the garage on the other side of the building. If she has to be honest, the idea of getting rid of her children once and for all crossed her mind before she left the room, but then she remembered about someone else. Someone who had taken advantage of her friendship with Jonas Feige to betray them all. Because it doesn't matter how many times Jonas blames Shinn for the events of a few months before, Sandra knows for a matter of fact it was not her to bring Lara back to life in the wrong place.

_ "I don't know, Popova," Jonas shakes his head slowly. "We're already short on money and to be honest I don't really see how bringing her back could help us." Twirling his father's pen in his hands, the man looks up at Katrina. _

_ She steps away from the wall she was leaning against and crosses her arms. "Your father would not agree with you." _

_ His face turns darker. "My father never agreed with me on anything, but I was always right and you know that." He smirks for a moment. "Even Houghton is on my side." _

_ Katrina doesn't flinch.  _ "She's with you only because you're easier to manipulate," _ she thinks, stepping forward.  _ "And she's absolutely right on this point." _ "Think about it, Jonas," she says. "Think about what will happen if this works." The man's imagination is already going wild and the smug smile on his face is the proof of it, but she doesn't stop. "Think about the fame, the money, the respect. We'll take a million-dollar project and bring it back by our side." _

_ Jonas lets out a laugh as he gets up, hands on the dark wooden desk. "We've already tried, but she preferred death over us." _

_ "That is no problem at all," she answers promptly, so invested in her speech that her thick Russian accent slips out. "Take one of those serums for memory loss Anderson is working on and the question is solved." _

_ He nods with a smirk. "You know what, Popova? You're right," he says. "Would you mind leading this project?" _

_ She thinks it through for a moment. No, it's too dangerous, Sandra may suspect something. "I could never steal such a honour from you," she replies with a light smirk painted on her red lips.  _ "And this is how I pay my debt, Lee."

The knife plants in the wooden wardrobe perfectly, precisely hitting the point Katrina was aiming at. She sighs and gets up to collect her weapon, boredom written on her face. At least the screams coming from the adjoining room have stopped. The worst thing isn't even having to listen to all those agents (or victims, as Katrina calls them) being tortured and brainwashed over and over until they're nothing but a corpse walking around. The worst thing is knowing one of her closest friends is there, taking part against her will in the worst projects ever conceived, Project 79.

The door is slammed open and three agents enter right while Katrina is staring absently at her knife. "Room 101," one barks and the other two jump towards her, immobilizing her and dragging her out of the bedroom.

Room 101 is freezing cold, water dripping down a pipe on the ceiling. Katrina studies her surroundings like a wild animal in a cage, throwing a few deadly glances to the three agents sitting before her. And they all wait in silence, the only sound is that of the water drops falling on the floor tiles.

Then the door is slammed open and crashes against the wall.  _ "Apparently no one in this goddamn building gives a f*ck about plaster,"  _ Katrina thinks while an annoyed grimace forms on her face at the sight of Sandra Houghton.

Sandra's lips, on the other side, are painted with a smug smirk as her gaze moves between Katrina chained to a chair and the variety of knives and torture tools on the nearby table. She sits down in front of her and takes a small blade, turning it over in her hands. She touches the top of the blade, applying just enough pressure for a small droplet of blood to fall down her fingers and on the floor. Her gaze moves from her own hand to Katrina's face and she gets up, her hands on her hips. "Tell me, Popova," she starts, "have you ever read Orwell?" The spy shakes her head slowly. "You have to know, then, that Room 101 is a  _ very _ special room where criminals face their worst fears and nightmares." She takes a step forward and kneels in front of her. "But unfortunately, I don't have the ability to know your darkest fears." A grin forms on her mouth. "Or do I?" She suddenly gets up and turns to one of the agents. "Bring here Agent 225, I have a new mouse for her to play with."

Two weeks have passed. Lara turns another page, sighing heavily at the insane amount of information she hasn't even read yet. It's like the knowledge that Sandra could come any moment and put her brother's life at risk has taken away all her ability to focus. She closes the book and sets it to the side, throwing a quick glance to Stephen reading his usual volumes about magic on the other side of the Sanctum library. She gets up just in time for her phone to start ringing. She picks up the call and heads out of the room, careful not to disturb the much more concentrated sorcerer. It seems to be the same informer who told her about her brother. His metallic voice echoes on the other side of Lara's phone. "1623 Avenue Y, Brooklyn. It's a  _ deadly _ important base. You have one hour and a half." Then the call ends.

Lara and Jonathan get out of the car. She parked a few blocks away from the given address, "for safety reasons." As Jonathan often says, she worries more about her car than her personal safety. There's no one around and the building, despite not being in some suburb area forsaken by God, seems completely abandoned. Lara kicks the door open, in front of her nothing but dust and old furniture. And partially broken stairs. The informer promised a base, but that in front of them seems abandoned. "You go upstairs, I stay on this floor," Jonathan says before putting a hand in the pocket where he has his gun and heading down the short hallway. Lara nods and rushes up the stairs, carefully looking around herself.

She slowly enters a room, the wooden door cracking. Her attention is immediately drawn away by a loud noise coming from downstairs and she turns back. Then an arm wraps around her waist and she feels something cold pressed against her neck. Before she can find out what that thing is, she kicks her opponent in the shin and twists their arm. Her eyes fall for a second on the taser now on the ground, on its side a small plate with "Agent 173" written on it, just in time for a punch to reach her jaw.

Lara stumbles backwards and meets the sight of a pair of ice blue eyes set on her face, the rest of her opponent's face covered by a black mask. She courses under her breath before another punch hits her stomach. She elbows her opponent in the face and bends down to reach the taser, which she then activates and presses against the other's neck.

While the agent is still on the ground, she rushes out of the room and down the stairs, almost colliding with Jonathan, a trail of blood under his nose. "There are some agents down there and-" He stops to inspect her body. "Are you okay?" He asks concerned.

She nods before someone starts shooting at them from the opposite side of the hallway. He wraps his fingers tightly around her wrist and drags her downstairs. The two hide behind a corner. He takes out his gun and is about to shoot at whoever is on the other side, but she stops him, lowering his weapon. "The agent," she whispers, "I know her." Upon his confused expression, she continues. "Just- let me try to talk to her."

Jonathan shakes his head and hands her his gun. "But keep this, I don't trust your 'friend'."

She smiles and steps into the corridor, the gun pointed at the other's head. She smirks at the woman in front of her. "You really should make up your mind about whether you want me dead or not."

The only answer she gets is a deep growl, followed by the woman launching forward and punching her in the face. Lara stops her attack, shoving her gun down her pocket to better fight. She avoids another punch and tears the mask off the woman's mouth, her eyes meeting the sight of Katrina's face. She's about to say something, but the Russian woman pushes her away, making the gun fall out of her pocket. Lara quickly gets up and kicks her hand, the gun sliding on the opposite side of the room. Her second kick is redirected on the close wardrobe, whose door shatters in a hundred small shards. Ignoring her failed attack, she pushes Katrina on the floor with a knee to her stomach and a punch, immobilizing her hands above her head.

Lara looks down at Katrina, a deep cut along her pale cheek and her lips cracked. Finally her eyes widen when they see the tracker on the woman's neck, a blue light blinking. Maybe she was wrong, maybe Katrina  _ did _ decide whether she should live or not, but someone didn't agree with her.

Before she can even process it, Katrina pulls a knee to her crotch and rolls them both, the witch now pressed under the spy. "Мне жаль*," she mouths, as if she didn't want to be heard by anyone else.

As Katrina raises a gun to her head, Lara feels a knot forming in her throat. She doesn't care about her safety, all she's concerned about right now is her friend (can she call her a friend? She's not so sure about it) because she's being forced to do it all for reasons she doesn't know. What hurts the most is Lara knows perfectly she would have ended up like her if she had not been dragged out of her messed up state of mind by Stephen and Wong. Reaching for a shard of wood not far from her, she pushes it deep into the spy's neck. Actually, into _the_ _device_ on her neck. 

Katrina feels a weak power discharge through her body, nothing compared to the punches she's received the day before. She shyly moves a hand to cup her skin right under her jaw, a now useless, bloodstained tracker falling on her fingers. She is about to look up, but before she can say anything her back meets the wooden floor, pushing air out of her lungs.

Lara, now standing upright, looks at her confused expression. "Thank you for everything," she says, her gaze set on her face and a grateful smile appearing on her lips, before she rushes to the room where her brother is supposed to be.

Katrina waits a second, two, three, four seconds, expecting to feel something curse through her body and tell her they've done it, they've kept their promise.  _ "One of your friends shall die, you get to choose which one." _ As if there was any doubt in Katrina's mind. It didn't matter how many times that mindless corpse was told to kick the life out of her, Katrina would always choose her. And she did. And she does. And the safest thing to do for her, for Katrina, for everyone is letting go.  _ "Lee will find her," _ she thinks.

She gets up and throws the tracking device against the wall, a sense of freedom and lightness filling her. No amount of alcohol has ever made her feel so high. She runs out of the building, still trying to convince herself it's not a dream and she's finally free.

Lara plops into the closest empty armchair, her laptop on her legs, and mindlessly stares at the screen, scrolling through the hundreds of emails and random messages.  _ "Don't need a fridge. Can't go to Scotland, I'm broke. Don't care about hot singles in my area. And I don't want to buy a new car goddamn! And when did I search for goth shoes? What are you even using my data for?" _ She collapses against the soft seat, sighing loudly as she deletes a long list of spam messages. As her hand reaches for the cup of black coffee on the nearby table, her eyes fall on a new notification appearing on the screen.  _ "New email from  _ [ _ Anna.karenina1877@hotmail.c _ ](mailto:Anna.karenina1877@hotmail.com) _ om." _ Without hesitation, she opens the document.

"I'm just writing you this because I owe you an explanation and, most importantly, an apology. I'm sorry, I'm deeply sorry I left all those years ago. 

Our relationship has never been the best and, honestly, most of the time I haven't insulted you just because of Elize. So when she… well… after  _ that _ , I had no apparent reason to still stay with you. Until I saw what those events had done to you. And then I felt powerless, like there was nothing I could do for you. You know I tried to prevent you from falling for that guy, Main, but you wouldn't listen. And I could have done more, a lot more, but I only understood it after I left, after you helped me leave. And I'm sorry. I should have stayed when you needed me to. I should have not let him get inside your head.

When you died, I was there, helping Jonas and your mother kill Feige. As soon as I found out you were gone too, I promised myself to pay my debt. And I brought you back. You were supposed to land in an Agency X lab, but I changed the coordinates for your landing spot, then I found out where your friend lived and sent him to your house. Finally I started giving you small hints, showing you the way, starting with giving your spy friend a message she would for sure give you. But I suppose you'd already figured this out.

I can't stay here in America anymore, it's not safe. I don't know where I will go, but you don't have to worry, I'll find a place. Before I go, I have to ask you one last favour. Please, please, don't stop running after your mother. She's out of control and way more dangerous than that idiot of Jonas could ever be. There are things going on, things you can't even imagine. I can't tell you everything because I don't know anything else, but keep an eye on a guy called Mitch Anderson and his Project 79. And stop this madness. Please.

Thank you for everything,

Kat."

Leaning back, Lara smiles softly, a warm feeling mixed with a sweet melancholy filling her chest. Yes, she will go on fighting the Agency. And she will do everything in her power to stop it all. She has to. She wants to.

Her lips are still turned upwards when she opens her mouth to whisper something. "Удачи катрина**." She means it, she really does.

  
  


*Мне жаль -> I'm sorry.

**Удачи катрина -> Good luck Katrina.


End file.
